When I ran my theatre company (Bushwack Theatre) I had no real money so I ended up doing many things myself. I tried the ‘do this for exposure, experience’ gambit with others a few times but it felt unfair to everyone. I learned many things quickly about page layout for posters, about set construction & design, even lighting & sound design. Even when I found people willing & happy to do those things I wasn’t always satisfied with the results – I wanted things my way – I learned to let go of that just to have time to enjoy other things. If it was good enough, but not perfect, it was good enough. That’s the way of the volunteer world. But when I paid for work to be done I wasn’t so laid back.

This piece comes some from that experience – giving friends a chance to perform as a favour to them & being forced to tell them they weren’t up to it or seeing production suffer as they struggled. I hadn’t done either of us, or the audience a favour.It also comes from a real life situation with a friend who owns a real business & pays people real money & expects real results. She is frequently disappointed in those results. Usually for the reasons stated in the piece. Expectation dictates what these people sometimes can’t deliver. But it’s not my business, it’s not my pocket book involved so I can step back to be a bit more objective.

I amused by the paradox of people who want to be helpful but only if those in need of the help are obedient, beholden & of course deeply grateful. If you hire someone to do a job they aren’t skilled at & you know that when you hire them don’t act all surprised & disappointed.

Now this piece doesn’t exactly fulfill the letter of the law but that isn’t the intent of these poems – a prompt is meant to trigger a train of thought that, in this series, often goes way off track. I’m not bossy enough to force it back on track 🙂